Chap. XX. Man — Sexual Selection. 585 



No doubt characters of all kinds may "be too much developed 

 for beauty. Hence a perfect beauty, which implies many 

 characters modified in a particular manner, will be in every 

 race a prodigy. As the great anatomist Bichat long ago said, 

 if every one were cast in the same mould, there would be no 

 such thing as beauty. If all our women were to become as 

 beautiful as the Venus de' Medici, we should for a time be 

 charmed ; but we should soon wish for variety ; and as soon as 

 we had obtained variety, we should wish to see certain cha- 

 racters a little exaggerated beyond the then existing common 

 standard. 



CHAPTER XX. 

 Secondary Sexual Characters of Man— continued. 



On the effects of the continued selection of women according to a different 

 standard of beauty in each race — On the causes which interfere with 

 sexual selection in civilised and savage nations — Conditions favourable 

 to sexual selection during primeval times — On the manner of action 

 of sexual selection with mankind — On the women in savage tribes having 

 some power to choose their husbands — Absence of hair on the body, and 

 development of the beard — Colour of the skin — Summary. 



"We have seen in the last chapter that with all barbarous races 

 ornaments, dress, and external appearance are highly valued ; 

 and that the men judge of the beauty of their women by widely 

 different standards. We must next inquire whether this pre- 

 ference and the consequent selection during many generations of 

 those women, which appear to the men of each race the most 

 attractive, has altered the character either of the females alone, 

 or of both sexes. With mammals the general rule appears 

 to be that characters of all kinds are inherited equally by the 

 males and females ; we might therefore expect that with man- 

 kind any characters gained by the females or by the males 

 through sexual selection, would commonly be transferred to the 

 offspring of both sexes. If any change has thus been effected, it 

 is almost certain that the different races would be differently 

 modified, as each has its own standard of beauty. 



With mankind, especially with savages, many causes interfere 

 with the action of sexual selection as far as the bodily frame is 

 '•imcerned. Civilised men are largely attracted by the mental 

 cnarms of women, by their wealth, and especially by their social 

 position ; for men rarely marry into a much lower rank. The 

 men who succeed in obtaining the more beautiful women, will 

 not have a better chance of leaving a long line of descendants 

 23 



